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Thursday, September 26, 2019

Is Yamnaya overrated?


Four years after the publication of the seminal ancient DNA paper Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe by Haak et al., we're still waiting for some of its loose ends to be finally tied up with new samples. In particular...

- if the men of the Corded Ware culture (CWC) were, by and large, derived from the population of the Yamnaya culture, then where are the Yamnaya samples with R1a-M417, the main CWC Y-haplogroup?

- if the men of the Bell Beaker culture (BBC) were also, by and large, derived from the population of the Yamnaya culture, then where are the Yamnaya samples with R1b-P312, the main BBC Y-haplogroup?

- and, most crucially, if R1b-L51, which includes R1b-P312, and is nowadays by far the most important Y-haplogroup in Western Europe, arrived there from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, then why hasn't it yet appeared in any of the ancient DNA from this part of Eastern Europe or surrounds, except of course in samples that are too young to be relevant?

I'm certainly not suggesting that, in hindsight, the said paper now looks fundamentally flawed. In fact, I'd say that it has aged remarkably well, especially considering how fast things are moving in the field of ancient genomics.

But those loose ends really need tying up, one way or another. It's now time.

So someone out there, please, let us know finally if you have the relevant Yamnaya samples. And if you don't, that's OK too, just tell us what you do have. Indeed, it'd be nice know a few basic details about the thousands of samples that have been successfully sequenced in various labs and are waiting to be published. A lot of people would appreciate it.

See also...

Corded Ware as an offshoot of Hungarian Yamnaya (Anthony 2017)

Hungarian Yamnaya > Bell Beakers?

Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but...

1,027 comments:

1 – 200 of 1027   Newer›   Newest»
vAsiSTha said...

popcorn time. no skin in the game.

zardos said...

Yamnaya is the Eastern branch of the PC steppe cultures, but its the Western part, between the steppe, forest steppe and Neolithic Balkan derived cultures which was the big winner of the development.
We need samples from the lower Don culture, which might be the father of both, more from Sredny Stog, especially the late phase, and more from the earlist CW, the SSC-CWC transition and Cernavoda I'd say.
Of course all ancient samples are nice, but these are essential and there are still gaps afaik.

Anonymous said...

I am sure Sredny Stog has something to do with this.

With that said, I will still enjoy seeing Gaska's "in your face" posts in this thread.

dsjm1 said...

Great to see the gaping holes get pointed at. It may be that the holes only seem to be there, but, for me the 1st flaw was looking at all the oldest R1b finds from between Samara and the Carpathian Basin and only ever seeing R1b-Z2103 mixed with I2, travelling into the Basin.

If P312 or U106 with an estimated TMRCA of *at least* 5000 years via a parent SNP (add 130 years for each extra one counted), came via the Basin, then there would surely be at least 1 L51 ancient burial on the route from Samara to the basin. Realising that there are quite a few Z2103 and I2 but no L51 on that route tells me that is not the likely path at all.

Add to this the research done by A A Foster back in 2005 where he used university DNA samples of R1b STRs (DYS390 in particular) to analyse its diversity. He concluded that the oldest R1b (most diverse DYS390) was Russian Baltic, the 2nd, was North Sea Baltic then mid Europe and the youngest R1b was on the Atlantic Iberia). He concluded this over 14 years ago. What I am seeing is increasing evidence he got the locations and oldest diversity right. Also he pinpointed an origin at Kazan ( near Samara).

So have we been simply looking in the wrong place ? - I think yes and in particular wasting time assuming L51 reach Western Europe via the Black Sea, the Danube then Bohemia or the Rhine. The evidence to me is swinging to a northern path through Russia and Ukraine then some split that gives us the PIE variants of Germanic Sth Baltic, and Celtic, via Bohemia over to the Danube and up the Rhine.

We live in interesting times

Anonymous said...

What if SSC and Yamna spoke different languages of the same family tree, and what if Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian are descendants of SSC while the rest of IE languages are Yamna-derived, or the contrary.

JuanRivera said...

Wonder if there's any ancient DNA in Crimea besides Ostrogothic_Crimea_ACD.

JuanRivera said...

Found an archeological correlate to the CHG admixture in EHG: trapezoids that can be linked to those in the Near East in the Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic of the lower Dnieper-Donets area and of the middle Volga.

Andrzejewski said...

You see, I’ve always thought that the PIE homeland was towards the western PC Steppe like Gimbutas was proposing and not the North Caspian area like Khvalynsk or Samara. It implies that the IEs were heavily mixed with EEF

Andrzejewski said...

@JuanRivera “Found an archeological correlate to the CHG admixture in EHG: trapezoids that can be linked to those in the Near East in the Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic of the lower Dnieper-Donets”

I am proposing an even more extreme theory: ANE (EHG) and Yana (CHG) were sister ghost populations so it might be that the EHG/CHG signal is basically on the same cline rather than an actual admixture.

Andrzejewski said...

But a second theory may be that some Piedmont_EN rich in CHG expanded in both directions into Samara and Sredny Stog and replaced their respective indigenous languages with a putative PIE.

Gaska said...

Finally, after many years someone dares to grab the bull by the horns, and talk openly about something that only a few have defended. A handful of Anti-Iberian airheads living in Anthrogenica banned me for demonstrating that there were Iberian migrations related to BB culture (despite the claims of my countryman Olalde) for defending genetic continuity in Iberia from 2,500 BC until the Roman conquest (and today), and for denying that Yamnaya was the source of IE and R1b-L51/P312. The world of genetics both among professionals and amateurs has become a kind of modern Holy Inquisition where the one who disagrees is mistreated by the cowardly crowd of flatterers. Well, the time has come to speak clearly. First I want to thank Davidski for letting me participate in this Forum, even though our ideas remain very different and probably irreconcilable.

At least you have demonstrated enough intelligence to try to take the Kurganist tribe to more reasonable positions. The express recognition that BB culture expanded from the Center of Europe (Alps, southern Germany, Alsace, Switzerland), to the east, that is, Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary and Poland is an evidence that No one can deny today. I have always said that the joint effort of the people who (within that Kurganist clan) know more about genetics was to take refuge for R1b-L51 in the SGC and in the Vucedol culture waiting for events, while only partially acknowledging their failure to link this lineage to the famous Yamnaya culture.

Days and months go by, the news is still bad, there are more cases that scare (VK531 in Norway, probably P312 in the LBK), rumors of R1b-L51 in Bohemia related to Narva culture, discovery of steppe signal in collective burials in a Swiss dolmen (Horgen Culture-Late Neolithic) etc. Obviously no one who plays his prestige in this world can continue to maintain the old Kurganist Theory without fearing that after so much effort he has to publicly acknowledge his failure.

Now we all see a desperate help request. Our position is unsustainable, we know you know something, tell us once before everything we have believed is destroyed.

Richard Rocca said...

The issue of the lack of L51 in the Yamnaya samples to date has been discussed at length and the one alternative is Corded Ware. See below:

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?10749-Corded-Ware-origin-for-P312

Of course the other option is that somehow L51 was an extreme minority in the westernmost periphery of Yamnaya and only really started to emerge with Vucedol.

The lack of R1a in Yamnaya cannot be explained by anything other than it wasn't there.

a said...

Over rated? Why are people so obsessed with rating Yamnaya in the first place?

andrew said...

R1b and R1a seem to well sorted for there not to have been some sort of cultural or political division between ancient populations in which one or the other was predominant, perhaps different languages.

Gaska said...

Honestly, the only thing that has bothered me in these years has been to check the contempt that many people feel for my country, without a doubt inheritance of the famous black legend inspired by our enemies when we were a great Empire. As Basque and Spaniard, I must admit that my position became more extremist because I tried to defend what I always considered an injustice. Having said that, for me it is not a matter of life or death to prove that the origin of R1b-L51 is not in the steppes, I am just very curious to discover the origin of my lineage and if it is finally in the steppes instead of toasting with Txacolí, I will do with Vodka.

PD- Davidski, we also know things, some of them interesting, but this is not a competition, maybe we should all reflect and instead of fighting, collaborate.

A said...

The Haak paper also gave the impression that modern Sardinians are almost identical to the Neolithic Anatolian farmers who spread across Europe, however this was later revised by the paper on 'Steppe and Iranian-related ancestry' in the Western Mediterranean. Can someone clarify which modern population is most similar to the Neolithic Anatolian farmers?

Andrzejewski said...

@Gaska Your perception of non-existent anti-Spaniard prejudice here borders on outright paranoia. BTW, ask ETA, many Euskera don’t consider themselves Spanish!

Anonymous said...

Yet no L51 in Vucedol, the Proto-Nagyrev culture is the so-called the Csepel group consisting of the the BBC which spread to the territory of the Vucedol culture.

Gaska said...

@Rocca

I cannot see what you speak in Anthrogenica but surely the conversations are very boring thanks to the guardians of Kurganist ultra-orthodoxy. Hear you say that L51 was a "extreme minority in the westernmost periphery of Yamnaya leaves me absolutely amazed. Of course, Yamnaya reached Vucedol as Gimbutas said, so we have a sample of Z2013 there, but they have never found L51 in Vucedol and you should also remember that this culture descends from the Baden culture.The cases of L11 in Nagirev are too young to be taken into account in this discussion.

Nor is the SGC a good option because neither archeologically nor genetically the CWC and the BBC have enough things in common to assume that L51 is hidden there. All you have left is steppe ancestry, and that means very little when talking about the origin of uniparental markers.

Simon_W said...

@A

"Can someone clarify which modern population is most similar to the Neolithic Anatolian farmers?"

Well, the question is: What do you mean by "most similar"? At least as far as direct ancestry is concerned, Sardinians still have the largest proportion of Neolithic Barcin_N-like Western Anatolian ancestry of all living people. Judging from the Global25/nMOnte method they are 81.9% Barcin_N.

Anonymous said...

The Z2103 in Vucedol probably it is not from the Yamnaya culture, but rather Luwians which by Herodotus has spread to the Ionian sea.

Aniasi said...

This is just my hunch, so feel free to rip into it:

Steppe IE society was very patriarchal, and oriented on Male line relationships.

Due to this, clans, moeties, etc would likely see conflict between Male lineages that would result in high casualties along that line. Male lines died out, or were forced out.


Amongst nomadic cultures, burials of the type that are discovered tend to reflect some level of establishment, power, or stability. Hence Yamnaya looking like 100% R1b. I think we will find some peripheral samples of R1a, eventually. I think that the CWC represents R1a male groups forced out, and then building their own societies through northeastern Europe.

Aniasi said...

I'm more inclined to feel that they shared a language, but that their clan, lineage, or moieties were different.

Gaska said...

While we all wait for the miracle that L51 appears in Yamnaya, or the people whom Davidski has asked for help to attend to his request, we could also comment on this paper.

+ Genetic transition in the Swiss Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age- Inga Siebke, Sandra Lösch, (5 September 2019). In: Annual Meeting of the European Archaeological Association

"Our results show a similar genetic process as reported for the Middle-Elbe-Saale region suggesting that the migration from the Pontic steppe reached all the way into the Swiss Plateau. However, our evidence suggests that the onset of that transition may have started even earlier in Switzerland compared to the Middle-Elbe-Saale region. The existence of core families within multiple burials and the determination, quantification and the estimated dates of arrival of different ancestry components in this region were analysed"

Let's see what the paper says but it seems interesting because if they find steppe ancestry in Swiss dolmens typical of western megalithic culture rather than in the CWC, then our vision of chalcolithic in Central Europe will change radically.

Mikkel said...

Aniasi: "Steppe IE society was very patriarchal, and oriented on Male line relationships.

Due to this, clans, moeties, etc would likely see conflict between Male lineages that would result in high casualties along that line. Male lines died out, or were forced out."

That view is very similar to the one described in Zeng et al. 2018 :) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04375-6

Richard Rocca said...

@Gaska, L51 (and P312 variety) shows up in their Swiss samples at the same time as it shows up everywhere else - with Eastern Bell Beaker. Prior to that, they are all I2 and G2. It's sad that you are still hoping (praying) that it will show up in some tiny corner of Western Europe before eastern Bell Beaker.

Aniasi said...

@Mikkel,

That's the very article that made me think about this a few years ago.

I think we will eventually find some R1a in early or peripheral Yamnaya, but it wont be as numerous or well established as R1b

Richard Rocca said...

@Gaska said...Vucedol and you should also remember that this culture descends from the Baden culture.

Only in your dreams.

JuanRivera said...

Regarding archeology, the Trialetian and Zarzian cultures overlap in Gobustan. And there's a coastal pass in the Eastern Caucasus leading to the steppe. That could explain why the Near Eastern ancestry of steppe populations is CHG-like instead of CHG proper (a pattern also seen in EHG itself).

Gaska said...


@Rocca

1-The Vučedol culture developed from two older eneolithic cultures: the Baden culture, mainly in the Pannonian plain, and the Kostolac culture in northern Serbia and western Romania, so the primary region of Vučedol development is eastern Croatia and the Syrmia region.

2-Swiss researchers are talking about steppe ancestry earlier in Switzerland than in Germany in a dolmen with collective burials.

3-I never pray for nonsense, and I have already told you that I am very satisfied with how "genetic" things have happened in the last year.

4-Do you think Switzerland is in Eastern Europe and that Swiss Bbs are from the East?- Let's see what the P312 dates are in Switzerland because if they are older than those in the Czech Republic and Hungary, then you can't pretend that the Eastern BBs are the source of anything. Remember that we have P312 in Europe in this order;

1-Germany
2-Spain
3-Holland
4-Alsace
5-England
6-Czech Republik
7-Hungary

It is not very difficult to understand that P312 is currently older in the West than in the East. And also remember that BBs in Switzerland, according to Besse belong to the Mediterranean domain

Richard Rocca said...

@Gaska, the P312 Swiss samples are younger than the German BB samples.

Richard Rocca said...

@Gaska, again nobody sees Vucedol as a Baden offshoot.

Regarding P312, and as I've stated many times, I have no issue with P312 expanding from Western Europe, be it from Single Grave Culture or even from Bell Beaker groups in eastern France where Grand Pressigny flint was being traded. However, your insistence that L51 originated in Western Europe has fallen flat on its face. Let no one here forget that.

Matt said...

My thoughts:

1) If we're losing confidence in the Yamnaya hypothesis, then within steppe hypotheses, we kind of have to go for a Corded Ware hypothesis*, and a pre-Yamnaya hypothesis won't really fly.

Reason being that, in the eyes of linguists (the people who *really* matter on this topic, what separates Anthony's Yamnaya hypothesis from Renfrew's neolithic expansion, is that Anthony claims to be able to date pIE through reconstructing that the proto-lexicon contained wheel terminology (and the horse, those this is less important in my eyes, because it is an animal that was probably about at low frequency across most of West Eurasia, certainly including Anatolia).

But that also rules out pre-Yamnaya IE expansions from the steppe, though not Corded Ware (who did have wheeled vehicles).

If anyone were then to dismiss this and argue for a steppe dispersal pre-Yamnaya, and thus pre-wagon, I imagine the Anatolian side would say something along the lines of "I'm glad you agree with us that wheeled vehicle terminology is bunk. Now look at our Bayesian Phylogenetic analyses that support an early farming date". You can't go "Here's a Sredny Stog theory", because SS didn't have wheeled vehicle and so proposing them is tantamount to discarding the killer app of Anthony's steppe theory, leaving it defenseless before Renfrew's neolithic.

So if you do reject Yamnaya, then the only steppe option that has a clear advantage (in historical linguistics opinion), would then have to be another contemporary like Corded Ware.

The advantage of the steppe hypothesis may look like genetics on here, but in the world of historical linguistics, the killer clincher is wheel words constraining dates. So if you sacrifice the importance of wheel words and cultural correlates, you commit seppuku on persuading linguists of the steppe hypothesis. That's why Renfrew's argument may beats Gimbutas's, but not Anthony's, at least in the court of linguistic opinion.

(Gimbutas argument having many other problems in the era of adna in that she comprehensively identified a "Kurganisation" that does not exist as a demic movement - bracketing together numerous cultures many of which clearly have no significant steppe genetic input, such as Baden, GAC, Maykop, etc. which followed from her romantic, feminist archaeology ideas but have no grounding in our understanding of cultural evolution and global anthropology.)

*even though I find the Corded Ware idea annoying, since on here it seems to be motivated often by petty squabbling with Carlos Quiles, and has been anchored to extremely dubious ideas like Vasco-Iberian from the steppes/with the Beakers, it's obviously the only steppe theory which has advantages over the Anatolian theory, if Yamnaya is not the one.

Matt said...

(cont.) 2) I don't think that the lack of Yamnaya y outside the steppe is necessarily fatal for the importance of the Yamnaya.

David Anthony has argued since virtually day one that male "elite recruitment" is important for the spread of IE.

So I would guess that if you have a y discontinuity between Yamnaya and others, but it looks like there's reasonable autosomal continuity, it would probably be a case of him going "Ah, I had some doubts about that part after Haak's paper, but it turns out I was right after all!". And since he's the guy that put the steppe theory in the lead at all, his opinion would carry some weight, although certainly people could counterargue this idea as not parsimonious.

Certainly it does look like we do see male haplogroups other than R1a showing up within admixture at a level indicating no major sex bias, when we look at the Central Asia series (from EBA->MLBA), and it does look a bit oddly coincidental to me that Yamnaya Bulgaria just happens to be I2 (forasmuch as there are complicated arguments about phylogeny where I believe some here argue that is an I2 from the steppe) and the Mycenaeans and others probably show switchovers from recruit of J2-men.

Though TC Zeng is a cool dude and probably there is a lot of truth in his theory.

Anonymous said...

There is no evidence that the wheel was invented Yamnians, it is an indication of the fact that it was made in the Steppe, but there is not the fact that it is made only in the Yamnaya culture.
Well, then, the CWC still started later than the beginning of the Yamnaya culture.

Child was much closer to the truth than Gimbutas.

JuanRivera said...

There were PIE words for silver (h₂r̥ǵn̥tóm), copper/bronze (*h₂éyos) and gold (*h₂é[h₂]uso-).

JuanRivera said...

Though no words for lead (the metal), which indicates that PIE speakers didn't make that silver.

Anonymous said...

"There were PIE words for silver (h₂r̥ǵn̥tóm)"

No, this word meant simply "white shine". Silver was denoted by the phrase white gold.

"copper/bronze (*h₂éyos)"

This word meant "common metal". It can be a copper, a bronze, a iron later.

"gold (*h₂é[h₂]uso-)"

And *g'hh3el(-t)-

JuanRivera said...

Well, that was a needed correction. The point is that there are metallurgy terms which date PIE to the metal ages.

a said...

@Archi does the term for copper in Slavic match Indo-Iranian?

Desdichado said...

@Matt: I think it's difficult to say that there is doubt about Yamnaya, merely that there are unanswered questions about Yamnaya. After all, nobody is contradicting Haak's claim that CWC was about 75% or more Yamnaya at a total genome level.

The exact situation with the y-DNA haplogroups has always been a question that we'd like resolved, but it doesn't change the material fact that CWC is clearly an offshoot of either Yamnaya or an earlier Yamnaya-like population.

And while Anthony may well have moved the needle on discrediting Renfrew's hypothesis, Renfrew's hypothesis was NEVER seen as superior by most specialists to the Gimbutas/Mallory steppe hypothesis. It was always a minor hypothesis that didn't really challenge the steppe null hypothesis in a serious way.

postneo said...

@Matt
Theres no y-dna continuity between Yamnaya-CW-BB. There were rather large paternal extinctions/bottlenecks as steppe diffused west. All males in Spain were replaced by "some others" yet the "supra-patriarchal" steppe conquerers spoke Iberian?
The horse was not an exotic steppe import but Iberian.

So we can have a scenario where IE was already spoken west of the steppe in central Europe and early Yamnaya stragglers and later CW picked up IE as they moved west.

Sumerian has the reduplicated form of the IE wheel word.

I think Yamnaya can still be relevant to PIE among other, but the kurganists need to discard the relevance of wheel, horse and their "patriarchy"

Anonymous said...

"So we can have a scenario where IE was already spoken west of the steppe in central Europe and early Yamnaya stragglers and later CW picked up IE as they moved west."

Das ist fantastisch.


Matt said...

@archi, no shit, of course the wheel was not invented by "Yamnayans" (who claimed it was?), the argument is the strongest support for most historical linguists for a late steppe date over an early anatolian is the suggestion that the PIE-speaking culture must have known of the wheel.

@desdichado: they may well have preferred Gimbutas's hypothesis, but if not for reasons of the paleo-lexicon that exclude earlier movements pre-wheel, it is not exactly so clear why to me why they would, since that is the item that comes up again and again as the killer claim about why Renfrew's hypothesis would not work (the other claim is that the persistence of other language families in the Near East and Mediterranean is a counterargument, but this is not really credible), and given Gimbutas's often pseudoscientific approach to many aspects of cultural change, anthropology and reconstruction of culture.

regarding status of CW as a Yamnaya offshoot, I intuit think other commentators on this blog would challenge you that in their view CW is an offshoot of Sredny Stog that has superficial similarity to Yamnaya from absorbing Khvalynsk like people, or something like this.

@postneo, certainly I think that the reconstruction of particular cultural features in pIE (clan based pastoralism or whatever) and then attributing this to a particular archaeological culture is extremely questionable, even if you accept the presence of certain technological terms.

Davidski said...

@Matt

My alarm bells in regards to Yamnaya first started ringing after watching this clip.

The guy makes some interesting points about the differences between Yamnaya and Sintashta, as well as their potential to spread languages.

Vinitharya said...

Ah, Yamnaya, it is like Gertrude Stein's Oakland: there is no there there. Also the Corded Ware negationism is a bit vexing; what other culture spans an area from the Rhine to the Volga, from Maastricht to Moscow? It isn't Yamnaya; such Yamnaya cultists are grasping at straws and should give it up, although I assume none of you are as radical as Mr. Quiles, whose last post mentioned Corded Ware "hijacking" Yamnaya DNA (?!?), reminds me of Lamarckian Evolution! "Gee, I R1a Corded Ware Guy need Steppe DNA so future scientists don't think I am a Uralic mongoloid. I will take some from this guy!"

Anonymous said...

In my opinion there are two hypotheses of the origin of the BB R1b,
a Northern: the Narva culture and later into the Netherlands by sea and along the coast, and
a Southern: from the Steppe, however, do not understand the source culture (Hungarian Yamnaya??) and the path, because East BBC appeared later West BBC certainly and it was already under the strong influence of the CWC.

Davidski said...

@Vinitharya

There are some awesome ancient DNA results on the way, and I can promise you they'll push Carlos to produce his finest work yet. :)

JuanRivera said...

There does seem to be extra Khvalynsk-like admixture in Early CWC from the Baltic.

Desdichado said...

@Matt "they may well have preferred Gimbutas's hypothesis, but if not for reasons of the paleo-lexicon that exclude earlier movements pre-wheel, it is not exactly so clear why to me why they would, since that is the item that comes up again and again as the killer claim about why Renfrew's hypothesis would not work (the other claim is that the persistence of other language families in the Near East and Mediterranean is a counterargument, but this is not really credible), and given Gimbutas's often pseudoscientific approach to many aspects of cultural change, anthropology and reconstruction of culture."

No, it was for a whole variety of reasons that hadn't ever really changed since Mallory wrote In Search of the Indo-Europeans. He told me circa 1999 in personal communication that that was still the mainstream theory and that Renfrew and his acolytes were pretty far off the reservation doing something unrelated to mainstream Indo-European studies.

@Matt "regarding status of CW as a Yamnaya offshoot, I intuit think other commentators on this blog would challenge you that in their view CW is an offshoot of Sredny Stog that has superficial similarity to Yamnaya from absorbing Khvalynsk like people, or something like this."

Well, that's why I said Yamnaya or some other closely related, similar, neighboring (in either time or space) population. The CWC is clearly closely related to the Yamnaya population at a genome level, but whether that means it was formed from actual Yamnaya people, or from a neighboring people (late Sredni Stog, presumably?) who were displaced by the spread of Yamnaya, that's a relatively minor detail, and doesn't suddenly make Renfrew's hypothesis more attractive again.

JuanRivera said...

Nope, that "Khvalynsk" was actually EHG. Replacing Yamnaya by either Dereivka I 1, Dereivka I 2 or Alexandriya give significantly worse fits, being outright laughable when using the Dereivka I samples (between 9 and 10 for the 2 sample and between 10 and 11 for the 1 sample). Using Alexandriya gives a fit between 5 and 6 compared to the fits when using Yamnaya (between 2 and 3).

Davidski said...

@Desdichado

The ancestors of the Corded Ware people moved from the steppe even before Yamnaya formed.

JuanRivera said...

That makes clear that Yamnaya (or some related group) is the source of the steppe ancestry of Corded_Ware_Baltic_Early. Later Corded Ware from the area shows extra admixture from the Ukrainian Eneolithic (which must have been hiding in the forest zone), but German Corded Ware at least doesn't show that extra admixture.

zardos said...

I think Yamnaya is just the Eastern branch of the steppe cultural horizon of the time, but Sredny Stog and "its children" CW in the North and Cernavoda, Usatovo South of it wete just the related Western branch.
I doubt there was any major genetic contributions, especially not on the male side to SSC and its derivatives, but the exchange of brides, goods and technology is likely.
So waggons, some innovations and gene flow might have come directly from Yamnaya, but the main body of PIE was Western steppe and SSC related more than Yamnaya.
The last common ancestors might be found in the Lower Don culture. I would propose a common ancestry predating Yamnaya, whether its Lower Don culture or not.

Even if you find single individuals with R1a in Yamnaya, these would be most likely individual migrants and not directly ancestral to the CW.
It would be like picking up Indus periphery. Could be a representative individual, but this is still not his ancestral population!

JuanRivera said...

That piece of information above means that there were a "Proto-Yamnaya" people who gave rise to both Yamnaya and the steppe ancestry of Corded_Ware_Baltic_Early. Now, I have no idea where that people originated from. We need more samples (Repin DNA may help).

Anonymous said...

Between the end of large cultures such as Dereivka and the beginning of the Yamnaya culture in the steppe had a lot of little cultures, such as Repin, Pivikha, Konstantinovka, etc.

Matt said...

@Desdichado: What are the variety of (linguistic) reasons? If you feel like briefly summarizing, because those I have mentioned are the ones that reoccur, and the only two that the more pro-Anatolian groups tend to bother talking about. (The other that I remember seeing is various gut feelings about how different languages should be if diverging over a Renfrew type timescale vs a late time scale).

I wouldn't argue that the genetic formation of the Corded Ware on a model of being an offshoot of the Yamnaya or of previous cultures would in itself make an Anatolian model of IE more or less likely. That was not an argument I was making.

@Davidski, I'm not entirely sure about Yamnaya vs Sintashta topics but on the topic of horses was re-reading this (https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/7/eaar5589) and thought about the Botai horses again:

In line with the potential of horses to adapt to various environmental conditions, SDM analyses predict suitable climatic conditions for horses throughout most of the geographic area investigated, from the colder Holarctic zone to more temperate areas in southern Europe, up to tropical regions in Africa and southern Asia. SDM analyses based on Asian data alone fail to predict this large, cosmopolitan distribution, in particular in warmer areas.

These differences can potentially be explained by locally adapted individuals in different environments, for example, the horse lineage(s) present in Europe, and not Asia, could have tolerated a wider, and warmer, range of environmental conditions and provided the source population for the spread of horses in more temperate and/or tropical regions all across the Old World.


(Also: Between the proposed domestication centers (central Asia, eastern Anatolia, and Iberian Peninsula), the latter region remains very suitable for horses throughout the entire Holocene, while the Pontic-Caspian steppes show high values of p-Hor only up to 7 ka B.P. based on the European niche. The whole area surrounding Botai appears extremely suitable for Asian horses 5 ka B.P., in agreement with the archeological record supporting their domestication during the Eneolithic, but not for the European animals.

While the Pontic-Caspian region appears not suitable for European horses around the time when horses where first domesticated some 5.5 ka ago (6), part of this region appears suitable for the Asian horses (with the Caspian Sea as the westernmost boundary). This may suggest that horse domestication started from a population background related to an Asian ancestry and that the further spread of the domesticated horses in Europe involved either adaptation to novel niches (possibly through selective breeding) or the application of domestication techniques to local horse populations pre-adapted to these environmental conditions. )

So you might have a selective reason as to why horses from the East-Central Europe region may have been a more "portable" domesticate around the Old World than Botai's horses, and could have had larger breeding populations, spread with a particular group into warmer environments, etc.

JuanRivera said...

In fact, we have an awful lot of gaps in pre-MLBA steppe ancient DNA, with the gaps being located in Crimea, Southern Ukraine and the Circum-Azov area, the northern Caspian semidesert, the Azov-Caspian steppe and Ciscaucasia (minus for Piedmont Eneolithic) and the Ural steppe and mountains.

Ric Hern said...

Well I still think that PIE had some connection with Proto-Kartvelians. If Kartvelian similarities were picked up somewhere else then we have to ask how Kartvelian got to where it is spoken today... This makes the area between the Southern Urals and Caucasus the most likely area of origin. The Lower Don I think will reveal the answers we seek.

The Caucasus Piedmont Eneolithic samples shows me that there could have been more than one refuge for R1bs during the Late Upper Paleolithic/Mesolithic.

It is not really a problem having a very early branch of PIE speakers expanding without the wheel and later adopt the word from their Late Indo-European cousins. We just have to ask the question, "Which phase of Indo-European did Linguists really manage to reconstruct ?" After all, isn't most Indo-European Languages today descendants of the bulk of Late Proto-Indo-European ?

If R1b L51 migrated from the Lower Don then they surely migrated using a very confined route to bypass all other Cultures between the Lower Don and the Elbe Rivers. So either through Mountain Passes of the Carpathians and Alps. Or up the Dnieper to Northeast Poland and from there by boat to the Elbe, Denmark and the Low Countries. This is maybe why we have seen a women with Scandinavian ancestry in Southern Germany....and maybe how Gaskas R1b in the Alps got there. Migrations by means of boats from the North...


music lover said...

The same reason why you find I2 in Swat but not in any of the samples from the Steppe which are all entirely R1a. Likewise why the earliest samples from the British Isles or Iberia with Steppe ancestry are all R1b, but clearly there are other haplogroups there in later times. Does R1b disappear from Samara and completely replaced with R1a? It's clear that there are biases in the sampling that is causing these effects.

Matt said...

On the wider presence of horses in the Near East, a couple of interesting excerpts:

1) Horse and hemione hunting at Late Neolithic / Chalcolithic Kosh Hoyuk, Central Turkey https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=phuWDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA42&pg=PA41#v=onepage&q&f=false

2) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TY3t4y_L5SQC&lpg=PA696&&pg=PA696#v=onepage - "Until very recently, neither Anatolia nor the Transcaucasus have produced such compelling evidence for the early domestication of the horse. Emerging analysis from Cadir Hoyuk is changing that. Benjamin Arbuckle has shown the presence of early domesticated horses at Cadir in the early and late fourth millennium BC" (although Arbuckle in more recent article above seems more circumspect about this!)

3) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wNsgAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA293&pg=PA293#v=onepage - "Support the thesis that wild horses inhabited the region south of the Caucasus give horse bones at several early prehistoric sites on the north Iranian plateau, e.g. the sixth millennium site Tepe Zaghe and the fourth millennium site Ghabristan in the Qazvin plain"

The most likely centers of horse domestication were probably the established ones discussed previously, but it seems fairly likely people over a large swathe of Eurasia would've known what they were and had a word for them.

Davidski said...

@music lover

No, R1a-Z93 didn't come from Samara, if that's what you're suggesting.

It's definitely from the west. From a different steppe population than Yamnaya.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Seems like you've been doing quite a bit of reading about horses there.

Have you had any breakthrough in figuring out where the Indo-European/Sintashta breed of horse may have come from exactly?

music lover said...

@Davidski
We have no data whatsoever to make the conclusion you are making. When you present the data you can make such statements. Till then the origin of the uniparental ancestries of the Steppe groups remains an open question. However, it is a fact that sampling in the Bronze Age reveals an _extremely_ biased view of the types of Y chromosomes present at a particular location as data from later periods in Europe and South Asia clearly shows.

M.H. _82 said...

@ music lover

“Does R1b disappear from Samara and completely replaced with R1a? It's clear that there are biases in the sampling that is causing these effects.”

. Thats not “sampling bias”; it’s shifting groups of distinctive cultural entities; with very explicable culture-historical reasons.
Calling it sampling bias is very concerning for a lack of knowledge

Davidski said...

@music lover

We have no data whatsoever to make the conclusion you are making. When you present the data you can make such statements. Till then the origin of the uniparental ancestries of the Steppe groups remains an open question.

Look more closely at the archeological data, and then you'll be able to predict some things in the ancient DNA data.

R1a-Z93 is tied to cultures from the west that are clearly distinct from Yamnaya.

music lover said...

@Davidski
Are you seriously going to suggest looking at archeological data to predict genetic ancestry? Archeology predicted that the Bell Beakers of England were local. So much for that prediction. I think it's clear that the sampling of burials in the Bronze Age are biased. By your logic the I2's in Swat must have come from South Asia.

Davidski said...

@music lover

By your logic the I2's in Swat must have come from South Asia.

They came from the same place as R1a-Z93. Well to the west of Samara.

Anonymous said...

@music lover

If the data contradicts the paradigm so much the worse for the data!
It's well familiar.


music lover said...

@Davidski
Why don't we play this game to see if Y chromosome lineages that we observe from the Ancient DNA data from the Bronze Age are due to sampling bias or some other process. Take ALL the data we have from Bronze Age Iberia and Brittain dated to between 2200 BCE to 1500 BCE. We have a huge number from the Olalde et al paper. Now make a list of the number of R1b Y chromosomes and Y chromosomes of any other type. This should be easy for you to do because there are no other types. Then look at data from Iron Age or historical period in both of these places including the present day and exclude Y lineages from Africa in the case of Iberia(such as E). What do you see? Care to test your "knowledge" with data? I can guarantee you that there is virtually no other explanation for why we don't observe the other lineages in the Bronze Age in these places other than that sampling bias.

Gaska said...

@Richard Rocca said-"Regarding P312, and as I've stated many times, I have no issue with P312 expanding from Western Europe, be it from Single Grave Culture or even from Bell Beaker groups in eastern France where Grand Pressigny flint was being traded. However, your insistence that L51 originated in Western Europe has fallen flat on its face. Let no one here forget that"

A long time ago I asked you if you thought that P312 had its origin in Eastern Europe and I have to admit that you told me NO. So far we agree. It also seems obvious that it bothers you to prove me right, even on issues that you know that I am right, that is why you insist that everyone be aware that I am wrong about the origin of L51.

At this point, everyone should be clear that there are people who have privileged information and that therefore, the elimination of the Yamnaya culture (even as a culture that should be considered as Indo-European), is due to apparently someone knows that R1b-L51 and R1a are not in Yamnaya and that they will appear in another culture prior to this one- My main objective was to liquidate Yamnaya as a source, but I accept without problem that L51 can appear in any region of Eastern Europe (despite not having left genetic traces there)- I also tell you that even those hypothetical cases of the steppes will have to be reviewed because there are great chances that they will descend from the Latvian hunter gatherers of the Narva culture. We already know that they moved towards Bohemia and I suppose they would also move eastward.

music lover said...

@Davidski
"They came from the same place as R1a-Z93. Well to the west of Samara." I don't think you understand the argument here. The point is that the I2 in Swat comes from the same place as the autosomal ancestry. Narasimhan et al produced an abundance of data from the Central Steppe with not a single sample having an I2 Y chromosome. The point is that the sampling of hundreds of samples across huge geographic range and time depth didn't yield a single I2 Y chromosome but there it is in Swat. Do you have another scientific explanation for such a phenomenon?

Anonymous said...

@music lover

"The point is that the sampling of hundreds of samples across huge geographic range and time depth didn't yield a single I2 Y chromosome but there it is in Swat. Do you have another scientific explanation for such a phenomenon?"

Of course, the Aryans in the steppe had non-Aryan enemies, but Indo-European ones, their names are known. They consider them like their brothers, but not Aryans.

]

music lover said...

@Mammoth_Hunter
"Nonsense . Nobody suggested BB originated form England "
I meant their genetics. It's obvious where the origin of the culture comes from.

"The reason why I2a2a1b and R1a-Z93 co-occur in South Asia is because they’re both from the westernmost steppe. Z2103 / Yamnaya was pushed away or moved away "

These two statements are in contradiction. Either you find samples with I2 in Sintashta or indeed all over Kazakhstan in the late Bronze Age, or that these haplogroups are present there and we don't sample it.

Anonymous said...

@ music lover
"Either you find samples with I2 in Sintashta or indeed all over Kazakhstan in the late Bronze Age, or that these haplogroups are present there and we don't sample it."

you distort, you don't absolutely understand archaeology, and trying to forge your nonsense under your paradigm.

Davidski said...

@music lover

The presence of I2 in the Iron Age Swat Valley doesn't contradict my argument, it supports it.

I2 was always more common on the North Pontic steppe than the Caspian steppe, while R1a-Z93 arrived on the Caspian steppe with individuals and whole populations rich in western ancestry that was much less pronounced in Yamnaya.

So it's very likely that the R1a-Z93 and I2 in the Swat Valley are associated with each other, and they both ultimately derive from the western edge of the steppe, not from Samara.

Obviously, you don't like this reality, so you'll keep arguing against it, and you'll probably keep arguing against it even when ancient DNA shows the presence of R1a-Z93 on the western edge of the steppe during the Early Bronze Age, and keeps failing to show that it was present in Khvalynsk or Yamnaya.

So I'll just leave you to it.

Gaska said...

Regarding BB culture, everyone should have understood for a long time that it is an absolutely Western culture that has absolutely nothing to do with either the CWC, Yamnaya or any other culture in Central or Eastern Europe. Its demographic capacity took it to Hungary in its greatest moment of expansion and there slowed the Indo-European expansion. As more ancient genomes are published, the chances of this culture speaking IE decrease exponentially.

Regarding the CWC, I consider that R1a is the only haplogroup that we can genetically link with the initial expansion of the Ie to the West and later to the East. Everything else is BS. The expansion of EI in Western Europe can only be attributed to Hallstatt or La Tene in full Iron Age. No one should be surprised because in France and Spain the Latin language only began to spread after the Roman conquest. Everything is much more recent than we thought.

M.H. _82 said...

@ music lover
I don’t really care about kazakhstan; but I’m sure I2a2 will show up there too
But we have the evidence from the start and the finish of the migration routes
I will only again outline that the shift from Yamnaya / Z2103 to Sintashta-R1a-Z3 is not sampling bias . It entails virtually a complete population shift which is coupled in autosomes & archaeology. It barely warrants explanation . Collapsing all these events into “da Yamnaya migrations” is simply irresponsible

JuanRivera said...

Khvalynsk has one R1a. Then, it's just one.

Davidski said...

There's no R1a-Z93 or even R1a-M417 in Khvalynsk.

a said...

Mammoth_Hunter

Why don't you quote up to the date ratios of R1b-Z2109+ and R1a from Samara region[aka Bashkir district].

music lover said...

@All
"The presence of I2 in the Iron Age Swat Valley doesn't contradict my argument, it supports it." Statements like this make it clear that you don't understand the Ancient DNA evidence. The point is that we have an entire chain of transmission of autosomal ancestry from Samara to Swat. Along this chain there is not a single sampled I2 Y chromosome. However we find it at Swat in the same frequency as R1a. Therefore there are only two explanations. (1) The ancestry in Swat is not from the migrations that is documented with radio carbon dates moving down the steppe into South Asia or (2) We are simply not sampling the right burials. Which one of the two scenarios do you support?

JuanRivera said...

Talking of Khvalynsk, what happened to the supposed I2 and J haplogroup genomes, among others? Mentioned by Anthony, but don't show up anywhere in the net.

a said...

JuanRivera said...
Khvalynsk has one R1a. Then, it's just one
Exactly the elite burial with a copper bead and ring. Whatever happened to that branch?

JuanRivera said...

I agree that derived R1a must have developed to the west of the steppe. There's a reason why there are three pre-MLBA R1a samples in Ukraine but only one for Khvalynsk, Karelia and Combed Ware each.

Anonymous said...

Gaska said...
" Regarding BB culture, everyone should have understood for a long time that it is an absolutely Western culture that has absolutely nothing to do with either the CWC, Yamnaya or any other culture in Central or Eastern Europe."

Why, had much in common, corded ware pottery, type of burial, the truth all is spread from the CWC, although in theory can be brought from the steppe.

JuanRivera said...

And then, Khvalynsk may have minor EEF and Ukraine_N admixtures, with the latter potentially explaining that underived R1a.

M.H. _82 said...

@ music lover

“I meant their genetics. It's obvious where the origin of the culture comes from. ”

If it’s obvious why is it still being incorrectly claimed to be from Iberia ?
Only a few immobilist British “new” archaeologists claimed there was no migration

M.H. _82 said...

“The point is that we have an entire chain of transmission of autosomal ancestry from Samara to Swat.”



The chain is from Dniester-Dnieper region to Swat; not samara
Samara/Khvalynsk is a dead end
There were at least 2 founder migrations to
samara bend region
1) late eneolithic Z2103 from Don c 3300 BC
2) Bronze Age Z93 & I2a2 from Weston of Dniester , 2500 BC

Anonymous said...

@music lover

"(2) We are simply not sampling the right burials. Which one of the two scenarios do you support?"

How much can be repeated, Vedic Indo-Aryans only cremated, all those tested samples of the Vedic Indo-Aryans are not. Those I2a can be either Vr(a)tya or Ayu, for example. It is a hostile Vedic Indo-Aryans tribes who fought with them, but Aryans believed them its not different from them in lifestyle.

JuanRivera said...

I wonder if the Q1a guys were constantly kicked around by the R1a, R1b and I2 guys. There are descendants clades all over IE territory, but the only times they aren't associated with West Siberian ancestry in ancient DNA are in Khvalynsk and Mesolithic Lithuania.

M.H. _82 said...

“ a”

“Why don't you quote up to the date ratios of R1b-Z2109+ and R1a from Samara region[aka Bashkir district].”

What about Bashkirs and how are they relevant to the current discussion ?

Anonymous said...

@JuanRivera

"I agree that the derived R1a must have developed to the west of the steppe. There's a reason why there are three pre-MLBA R1a samples in Ukraine but only one for Khvalynsk, Karelia and Combed Ware each."

The number in Ukraine is simply the effect of more Mesolithic samples than in Russia.

M.H. _82 said...

Music lover

“Along this chain there is not a single sampled I2 Y chromosome. ”

You mean apart from all the I2a2 in Sredny Stog and western steppe Neolithic/ eneolithic groups?
What’s the bet that Z93 shows up there too ?

JuanRivera said...

Actually, in the steppe, R1a seems to have been more common to the west. In the east, Khvalynsk is the only one to show R1a, and then it has Ukraine_N admixture, which could place that R1a as a migration from Ukraine. All the rest are either R1b or Q1a. For Karelia and Combed Ware though, an EHG origin is the most likely option.

a said...

Mammoth_Hunter said...
“ a”

“Why don't you quote up to the date ratios of R1b-Z2109+ and R1a from Samara region[aka Bashkir district].”

"What about Bashkirs and how are they relevant to the current discussion ?"

Have you seen or heard of Baymaksky District Баймакский район Republic of Bashkortostan Russia? The district is adjacent to the ruins of Sintashta-Arkaim. In one study, out of 89 samples from this region 81% come in as R1b1b2 only 15% come in as R1a. This was the very heart of Sintashta-Arkaim region.I would bet that the R1b samples are R1b-Z2109+ the same branch that has been in that location for the past 5000 years.

JuanRivera said...

Baltic hunter-gatherers also lack R1a, despite their lineages being mostly of EHG origin. So, it's more evidence for the existence of an R1a spike in Ukraine, with levels being low elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

JuanRivera said...

" Actually, in the steppe, R1a seems to have been more common to the west. In the east, Khvalynsk is the only one to show R1a, and then it has Ukraine_N admixture, which could place that R1a as a migration from Ukraine."

No.

There is no Neolithic sample of R1a in the Ukraine. Only two in the Mesolithic (there are more Mesolithic samples than in Russia). Alexandria (unclear time) is not the Ukraine, it is exactly on the border of the Ukraine and Russia, whether the border is a dozen kilometers to the west it would be Russia already. From the point of view of geography, this burial belongs to the same Volga-Don region as Khvalynsk.

JuanRivera said...

Further speaking of Q1a, they seem to have had a low social standing. Not only that explains why Q1a is rare in steppe ancient DNA and modern IE groups, but also why the Khvalynsk Q1a guy was smacked fatally in the head and afterwards buried with no grave goods.

M.H. _82 said...

“A”

Bashkirs are a Turkic group with significant Caucasian or Balkan ancestry (can’t remember exactly)
They’re a recent arrival to the region; not 5,000 years of continuity

Dita said...

Mallory in 2012 stated that neither steppe nor anatolia model works with respect to agricultural terminology/phylogeny but that PIE's must have known agriculture. My wild guess is copper age balkans is related to PIE, and maybe we need to relook at Kretschmer's Proto-Indo-Germanisch.

From Mallory:

"Both Europeans and Asiatic Indo-Europeans shared inherited words for both livestock and arable agriculture (if someone can prove they did not, this would make things easier for many of the homeland models). Thus, any solution to the homeland problem must be able to explain how we can recover cognate terms associated with farming from Ireland to India.

If there was little or no agriculture east of the Dnieper, then how can we describe the eastern archaeological cultures of the Don (Repin), Volga (Khvalynsk) or the entire Don-Ural region (Yamnaya) as Indo-European if they lacked arable agriculture?

That the steppe populations exploited wild plants such as Chenopodium and Amaranthus is well known and while this might explain the ambivalence of some of the cereal names to reflect a specific cereal type (rather than just ‘grain’) we would still need to explain why the semantic variance among cognate words is largely confined to ‘wheat’, ‘barley’ and ‘millet’ as if at least one of these was the original referent (and not some wild grain).

All of the above problems would also be inherent in Renfrew’s revised version of the Anatolian homeland model that requires the eastern Indo Europeans (Indo-Iranians, Tokharians) to pass through the Pontic-Caspian steppe."

- "Twenty-first century clouds over Indo-European homelands"

JuanRivera said...

Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence. One can take a look at Proto-Turkic terms for agriculture, which are there, even though the steppe there is even drier than the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

JuanRivera said...

The ancestral Puebloans had it even harder, yet they were still able to grow crops.

a said...

Mammoth_Hunter said...
“A”

Bashkirs are a Turkic group with significant Caucasian or Balkan ancestry (can’t remember exactly)
They’re a recent arrival to the region; not 5,000 years of continuity"

The Burzyan Bashkirs are R1b-KMS 67+KMS75+ that makes them directly related to the Yamnaya who were in the region 5000 years ago and the Yamnaya who migrated to Afansievo and Hungary 4000-5000 years ago. Just because they speak a different language does not mean they have ancestral roots elsewhere. There are also Bashkirs with R1a who at one time were probably connected to the original Sintashta-Arkaim population,but also adopted a new language for whatever reason.

Andrzejewski said...

@JuanRivera “Further speaking of Q1a, they seem to have had a low social standing. Not only that explains why Q1a is rare in steppe ancient DNA and modern IE groups, but also why the Khvalynsk Q1a guy was smacked fatally in the head and afterwards buried with no grave goods.”

Could it be he was a Botai, Keltminner, Steppe Maykop, Sarazm or Combed Ware guy? There was enmity between PIE and these WSHG rich groups.

Andrzejewski said...

@JuanRivera “Baltic hunter-gatherers also lack R1a, despite their lineages being mostly of EHG origin. So, it's more evidence for the existence of an R1a spike in Ukraine, with levels being low elsewhere.”

I thought that Baltic HG were mostly a leftover Kunda WHG, with Narva being the EHG thin layer on top of the mostly Kunda. As such, they were similar to SHGs

JuanRivera said...

I was speaking of Y-DNA. Autosomally, they're more similar to WHG.

JuanRivera said...

Though they do have significant SHG and slight EHG admixtures.

Sofia Aurora said...

@Davidski

WELL SAID DEAR DAVID!!

In three months from now we are entering 2020 and the most crucial things in PIE genetics remain unrefined giving place to every possible theory (biased or not) for the anti-kurganists.

The thing is because "money makes the world go around" this delay of results is it because of the vast amount of data or because the scientists want to present them "slice by slice" in various articles in order to get more money?

Dospaises said...

Davidski, where do you think that R1b-L51 was hiding out before the Bronze Age?

M.H. _82 said...

@ "a''

''The Burzyan Bashkirs are R1b-KMS 67+KMS75+ that makes them directly related to the Yamnaya who were in the region 5000 years ago and the Yamnaya who migrated to Afansievo and Hungary 4000-5000 years ago. Just because they speak a different language does not mean they have ancestral roots elsewhere. ''

If Bashkirs are Turkic, then they must have ancestry from somewhere else
Look where Bashkirs plot.

Im not sure why you imagine that Yamnaya-related groups were somehow the only example in history to be immune from local displacement.

Davidski said...

@Dospaises

Where do you think that R1b-L51 was hiding out before the Bronze Age?

Definitely somewhere deep in Eastern Europe, but not necessarily on the steppe.

This is more than a hunch, but I can't elaborate. Let's wait and see.

Davidski said...

@Mammoth_Hunter

I think you're being harsh. Archaeogenetics is a new field, and I'm quite sure that with the benefit of hindsight many of the scientists involved in these early ancient DNA papers would've done things somewhat differently.

Having said that, I agree with you that, in particular, the interpretation of the Bell Beaker ethnogenesis has been unsatisfactory to date and that needs to change in the upcoming papers to reflect ancient DNA more accurately.

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

"somewhere deep in Eastern Europe" how deep ? East of the Don River or East of the Vistula River ?

What is your definition of Deep ?

Davidski said...

As east as the Don River, more or less.

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

Thanks

Michalis Moriopoulos said...

Ryukendo mentioned on AG that his source found R1b-Z2103 in a Mycenaean elite grave.

I suspect Yamnaya might still be important for Proto-Greek.

Davidski said...

@Michalis Moriopoulos

Ryukendo mentioned on AG that his source found R1b-Z2103 in a Mycenaean elite grave.

But Yamnaya isn't the only steppe population with R1b-Z2103.

There are already others in the ancient DNA record, and more to come soon.

History Diver said...

Perhaps some clues can be found in archeology. After all, the oldest wheel found to date was encountered in Slovenia and is estimated to be 5200 years old. And the oldest dairy product residue, roughly 7500 years old, was found on pottery shards in modern day Poland.

Cpk said...

R1b-Z2103 in a Mycenaean elite grave is a big win for the Yamnaya.

Davidski said...

@Cpk

R1b-Z2103 in a Mycenaean elite grave is a big win for the Yamnaya.

Nope.

You'll see Z2103 on the North Pontic steppe before Yamnaya and in the post-Yamnaya Carpathian Basin.

Matt said...

@Davidski, not really on the horse origing front, I only have the same intuitions that it is somewhere on or close to the PC steppe, probably not Anatolia. Environments of climatic adaptedness for different horses (Asian possibly like Botai horses vs European like later horses) seems like an interesting way to look at the questions involved, and I wonder if there were climatic shifts across the EBA->LBA which would help push cultures with particular horses in particular directions.

@Mike, yeah, I would somewhat echo Davidski, and add that by this stage it is likely that Z2103 had some presence in cultures outside the steppe too - Balkan and probably West Asian too (Haji Firuz BA for'ex?).

So straightforward association with direct connection or transmission of language from early Volga-Ural steppe and offshoots (Yamnaya, Afanasievo, probably Repin) is not easy.

Having said that it may be more probable that it comes from a source with high frequency, even if temporally distant?

Though also caveat that y-dna haplosubgroups have often been called wrong before and it would be good to look at that in open internet forums before calling judgment.

That said, I assume Ryu's source implies that the source has tested lots of Mycenaeans and come back without R1a, or it would have been mentioned. (That doesn't eliminate in any way the sort of Graeco-Armeno-Indo-Iranian-Balto-Slavic "core" ideas that have been advanced, but does equally not add genetic supporting argument from connecting male population movements to this.). Beyond R1, it would be interesting to see if there was any non-J2 found, and where this would seem to point to, in terms of the north, east, etc. (or conversely, if it's solid J2 bloc in Greece, and a wider present day distribution of Greek y types today is largely from later phenomena, etc.)

Francesco Brighenti said...

@Davidski

Any opinion about this leak from G. Chaubey's forthcoming paper concluding that R1a originated in India:

https://youtu.be/PIeiHsGUeEU
(in Hindi, but see the conclusions in English starting at 19:04)

Of course, they have no ancient R1a samples from within India... just modern DNA...

Davidski said...

@Francesco Brighenti

Of course, ancient DNA clearly shows that R1a was present in indigenous Eastern European hunter-gatherers, and that it moved en masse from Eastern Europe into Central Asia during the Bronze Age, not vice versa.

So it's already impossible for R1a to be native to South Asia, and there's no way that Chaubey can prove such a thing even if he tests every man in India.

Anonymous said...

@Francesco Brighenti
"Any opinion about this leak from G. Chaubey's forthcoming paper concluding that R1a originated in India:"

This Chaubey's bad presentation has already been discussed in a previous topic.

Francesco Brighenti said...

@Davidski

Agreed, yet Chaubey claims there is a continuity of 20,000 years of R1a in India.

How is that possible?

Davidski said...

@Francesco Brighenti

It's not possible for there to be 20,000 years of R1a continuity in India.

All of the R1a lineages in present-day Indians arrived there after ~2,000 BCE, and so there's now a modern phylogenetic continuity in R1a there, but this was imported into India from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

zardos said...

Hypothetically, even if there would be an R1a haplotype in India much older than the IE expansion, this would be some isolated lineage and practically all modern Indian R1a, all the steppe ancestry and Indo-Aryan influences would all still be coming from Eastern Europe in the Bronze and Iron Age.
So even the near impossible miracle of an older local R1a lineage would change nothing for AIT being now proven. Because of the lack of continuity and connection to Indo-Aryans.

It would be like R1b-V88 in Neolithic Western Europe and Africa. Doesnt prove anything for BBC lineages.

Gaska said...

@Davidski

Do you know the dates of that L51 located deep in Eastern Europe?
Do you think that L51 is a typical EHgs marker?
Do you think that Single Grave culture is still the key to discerning the L51 expansion?

M.H. _82 said...

Populations like Yana and MA-1 must represent discontinuities at least on a regional level, and continuous settlement of the arctic was only achieved much later on (after the LGM).
Instead, the initial peopling of Siberia, as Europe took at least a couple of attempts. I am curious where the starting point, or ”base-camp ”, might be for this? One possibility is the Zagros region. Intuitively, this might seem far too south, however, that is where the Paleoarctic and the Savanah-Arabian ecotones (broady speaking) intersected c. 40 k years ago. (”Kaldar cave”..Bazgir et al).

music lover said...

@Davidski
"You'll see Z2103 on the North Pontic steppe before Yamnaya and in the post-Yamnaya Carpathian Basin."
I think we need to have a blog post called Z2103 and mental health. We have lots of data from the Western Steppe including Samara, Central Europe and Eastern Europe. It's clear that the earliest samples with Z2103 are from Samara, well East of the Carpathian Basin.

M.H. _82 said...

@ Music lover
Would you care to sketch out the ethnohenesis of Yamnaya, history of Z2103 and its correlation to distributions in places like West Asia & Balkans ?

Ric Hern said...

@ Mammoth Hunter

The Caucasus, Anatolia or Afganistan...considering Makro Haplogroup IJK and where I and J was found in Ancient Samples sofar the best bet is in or near Anatolia. Remember K2 in Romania and Ust Ishim in Southwestern Siberia...

music lover said...

@Mammoth_Hunter
The summary of all present data that is available is that the earliest observed Z2103 is from Samara, well East of the Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, and along with the autosomal ancestry is responsible for the Afanasievo migrations that spread Tocharian, the migrations south of the caucuses to Hajji Firuz and likely to Anatolia, as well into Eastern Europe and down into the Balkans and Aegean. Any other interpretation such as R1b-Z2103 is from the Carpathian is unsupported by evidence.

Davidski said...

@Gaska

I still don't really know how L51 ended up in Western Europe. I assume, for now, that it got caught up in the Corded Ware complex somewhere in the east, moved into Northern Europe, and went from there.

JuanRivera said...

Z2103 also shows up in ancient DNA in Vucedol, Afanasievo, Catacomb, Poltavka and Bronze/Iron age Western Asia. Afanasievo and Yamnaya appear roughly at the same time, while Vucedol is both contemporaneous with and postdates Yamnaya, and Catacomb and Poltavka are Yamnaya's successors in the steppe. In modern DNA, Z2103 shows up from Iberia to India, which would point towards Z2103 being present in Corded Ware, Bell Beaker and Sintashta/Andronovo.

Ric Hern said...

@ Mammoth Hunter

As far as I can remember there is no admixture of Altai Neanderthals or Denisovans in Western Eurasians...so an Early Spread from Southeast Asia does not make sense to me at this point in time.

M.H. _82 said...

@ Ric

''The Caucasus, Anatolia or Afganistan...considering Makro Haplogroup IJK and where I and J was found in Ancient Samples sofar the best bet is in or near Anatolia. Remember K2 in Romania and Ust Ishim in Southwestern Siberia.''

I don't think IJ* is from Anatolia - it rather points to the Iran-Caucasus zone.

'' Remember K2 in Romania and Ust Ishim in Southwestern Siberia.''''

= Early northern dispersals of K2 - locally extinct.

Davidski said...

There probably won't be any Z2103 in Corded Ware.

The so called Vucedol Z2103 is actually from a Starcevo burial pit, but dated to the EBA.

Z2103 was already on the North Pontic steppe during the Eneolithic. I don't know when it got to the Carpathian Basin, but probably soon after.

Let's hope all of these new samples are published soon, or at least some details about them are released, otherwise these discussions will get very weird.

JuanRivera said...

Z2103 also shows up as east as Beijing, however, it has to be a result of modern era movements.

Gaska said...

@Davidski

I asked you, because I think we may be talking about the Pit-Comb Ware culture. There are some indications that take us there, for example its relationship with the Narva culture, having found these signs in Bohemia and its extension from the Baltic Countries to the Ural mountains. We know that the Narva culture is totally R1b-P297 and is a fairly acceptable solution. Some of this region was absorbed by the later Corded Ware horizon.

It would certainly not be a surprise to me because I have never stopped pointing out the genetic continuity of R1b in the Baltic Countries. And obviously this is Eastern Europe

music lover said...

Z2103 does not show up in Vucedol. Do you have the calls to back that up? Let me be clear. The earliest dates for Z2103 in Samara, far in the east predate all appearances of that Haplogroup in Poland, and the Carpathian Basin.

Davidski said...

@Gaska

I'm not aware of any L51 in the Pit-Comb Ware culture.

You need to get in touch with your contacts if you want more info. And if they don't know, then you'll have to wait.

Ric Hern said...

Doesn't matter. They were already way up North around 40 000 years ago which leaves the possibility open for others as far North who could have survived...

Anatolia vs. Iran-Caucasus. Potato vs. Potaato. Close to each other. Doesn't really matter to me. Do you think K2 Ancestors in Romania migrated via Anatolia or via the Steppe to reach Romania ?

Davidski said...

@music lover

He's talking about this sample...

Croatia_Starcevo_EN_o I3499 R1b1a1a2a2 2884-2666 calBCE MathiesonNature2018

No one knows what it really is. It comes from a Starcevo burial pit though.

In any case, there are older instances of Z2103 from west of Samara on the way. Sit tight.

Anonymous said...

@JuanRivera

"Z2103 being present in Corded Ware, Bell Beaker and Sintashta/Andronovo."

No. In Andronovo, it may be present only in the periphery assimilated it Afanasievo and Yamnaya populations. The others just don't have it.



It should not be forgotten that the CMC (Babino) is a post-corded culture that took the place of the Yamnaya-Catacombs culture, so its population also had Z2103, from where it spread to Greece, so even in this case there is no reason to associate the Achaeans with the Yamnaya culture.


M.H. _82 said...

@ Music Lover

''The summary of all present data that is available is that the earliest observed Z2103 is from Samara, well East of the Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, and along with the autosomal ancestry is responsible for the Afanasievo migrations that spread Tocharian, the migrations south of the caucuses to Hajji Firuz and likely to Anatolia, as well into Eastern Europe and down into the Balkans and Aegean. Any other interpretation such as R1b-Z2103 is from the Carpathian is unsupported by evidence.''

Thanks that pretty detailed.
I don't think anybody has suggested that Z2103 is from Hungary or Poland. Interestingly, however, there is R1b-Z2103 in dated to 2890-2696 calBCE (4195±20BP, PSUAMS-2828) (Mathieson 2018) in Dereivka, and this is not from a Yamnaya context. Naturally, there is Z2103 in Yamnaya which essentially date to the same period; and esp. in that of the north Caucasus-Caspian zone, but also in Hungarian Yamnaya, presumably. The earliest L51 thus far is from BB in central Europe.

The samples from pre-Yamnaya Samara thus far are R1a, R1b -V3616, Q1. Im sure therell be others. The Ukraine Neolithic R1b is xM269. So at present, its not tneirely clear where exactly M269 expanded from. Certainly the genomic & archaeological evidence points to a 3 way mixutre, at least, for what occured; not a simple expansion from Khvalynsk.

''ancestry is responsible for the Afanasievo migrations that spread Tocharian''

My understanding is that there had been concern that these samples are were Ph155 ?
I see no continuity between Afansievo & Tocharians, its like 2000 years apart.

''the migrations south of the caucuses to Hajji Firuz and likely to Anatolia, as well into Eastern Europe and down into the Balkans and Aegean. .''''

Yes thats certainly true - the Iron Age Ossuary burial. West Anatolian BA samples would be delicious indeed.


music lover said...

@Davidski
That sample is almost 400 years later than its first appearance in Samara. We have a TON of data from Poland and the Carpathian Basin already and Z2103 doesn't exist there. It arrives from the thousands of miles East on the far North west of Central Asia.

Gaska said...

Ok we'll wait

Anonymous said...

@Mammoth_Hunter
"I see no continuity between Afansievo & Tocharians, its like 2000 years apart."

No one sees any continuity between the Tocharians and anyone else, because apart from language, nothing is known about the Tocharians.

Davidski said...

@music lover

I don't remember saying anything about Poland.

And Samara is officially in Eastern Europe, not the far north west of Central Asia. But it doesn't matter anyway, since you'll be seeing older Z2103 than the Yamnaya period on the North Pontic steppe.

Ric Hern said...

If the Usatovo and or Suvorovo Cultures do not produce R1b L51 then the only thing for me that makes sense is a migration up the Dnieper to Lithuania or Northeast Poland and from there a Maritime Expansion to the Elbe River, Denmark and the Low Countries...they certainly were able to reach Britain and Ireland in maybe Large Numbers so why not from the Baltic doing coastal hopping ?

JuanRivera said...

According to Yfull, Z2103 originated 6.1 kya, while Yamnaya appeared at roughly 3300 BCE, which means that Z2103 is roughly 800 years older than Yamnaya.

Anonymous said...

@Mammoth_Hunter

I repeat, we do not know anything about the Tocharians themselves, there is no data on their archaeology cultures that associated to them, nothing can be traced from anywhere now. Now there is no data, so now no hypothesis can be rejected and it is impossible to say that there is no continuity between anyone. Anybody can't see anything, there's no data.

As I recall, the local Tarim's population has a Z2103, if I'm not mistaken.

music lover said...

@Davidski
When Russia joins the European Union you can call Samara officially part of Europe. The earliest Z2103 samples that we have are about 100 miles from the border of Kazakhstan. No one in their right mind would call that Eastern Europe.

Ideological boundaries aside we already have some data from the North Pontic Steppe, as well as from the Carpathian Basin, and lots of data from Eastern Ukraine. Z2103 is not from anywhere of those. It's clear that the origins of Z2103 are close to Samara.

M.H. _82 said...

@ Music Lover

''I repeat, we do not know anything about the Tocharians themselves, there is no data on their archaeology, nothing can be traced from anywhere now. Now there is no data, so now no hypothesis can be rejected and it is impossible to say that there is no continuity between anyone. Anybody can't see anything, there's no data.
''

Are you serious ? There is no continuity. We have positive evidence for that, not an evidence of absence. Stop philospphizing please

Ric Hern said...

@ music lover

For a while now the Urals are considered as the boundary between Europe and Asia...

JuanRivera said...

Now, the dates for Afanasievo (from 3300 BCE to 2500 BCE) give additional support for the idea of a Proto-Yamnaya people. The most likely option is a Proto-Yamnaya people from which Yamnaya, the steppe ancestry of Corded_Ware_Baltic_Early and Afanasievo all descend. Quite notably, Afanasievo ended about a century later than Yamnaya. One thing to note, however, is that Yamnaya groups on the steppe were heterogeneous, with different proportions of Alexandriya/Sredny_Stog_II, Dereivka_I_1, Khvalynsk and Progress.

Anonymous said...

@ Music Lover Mammoth_Hunter

"When Russia joins the European Union you can call Samara officially part of Europe. The earliest Z2103 samples that we have are about 100 miles from the border of Kazakhstan. No one in their right mind would call that Eastern Europe."

Don't be crazy.

M.H. _82 said...

I didn’t say samara isn’t in Europe (!?)
The Urals became a (relative) barrier at the Holocene

Davidski said...

@music lover

When Russia joins the European Union you can call Samara officially part of Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe

Davidski said...

I really like the new Wikipedia map of Europe actually.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe_orthographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary_(with_borders).svg

Anonymous said...

Until the 1950s, the European Union did not exist in any form, therefore Europe did not exist at all.
Wow-wow-wow.

music lover said...

@Davidski @ric hern
From the article you quote "the land border is somewhat arbitrary and has been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity". The natural thing here is to consider the Dneiper the natural boundary. It also corresponds to clear separation of Anatolian farmer related ancestry and EHG related ancestry in the Neolithic. A genetic, geographic and cultural boundary from around 6000 years ago.

Davidski said...

Yeah, and Switzerland isn't a part of the European Union.

So I guess Switzerland isn't in Europe, or something.

M.H. _82 said...

That’s a nice map
Looks like PIE emerged from east Central Europe

music lover said...

@Archi
I'm not debating that Europe or indeed Asia doesn't exist. I am saying both do but that it is a completely arbitrary definition and those who push for any other agenda other than the fact that there aren't actual boundaries are driven by ideology not science.

Anonymous said...

@music lover said...

"From the article you quote "the land border is somewhat arbitrary and has been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity".
The natural thing here is to consider the Dneiper the natural boundary."

It is not true, the Dnieper has never been the border of Europe, never at all.

music lover said...

@Davidski
Switzerland is in the European Economic Area :) Russia isn't

Davidski said...

@music lover

The natural eastern border between Europe and Asia are the Ural Mountains. This has also been a very effective genetic border between Europe and Asia across the millennia.

See that's why EEHG is different from WSHG, and Yamnaya and Sintashta are different from Botai.

Only when this border was seriously breached by mass migrations did it cease being a genetic border, but only for certain times, like during the Andronovo period when Central Asia was populated by Europeans.

Aniasi said...

@Davidski,

I remembered something. Isn't Afanasevo really genetically similar to Yamnaya?

Didn't they find that while R1b was prevalent, there was also R1a?

Anonymous said...

@music lover

"I'm not debating that Europe or indeed Asia doesn't exist. I am saying do both, but that it is a completely arbitrary definition and those who push for any other agenda other than the fact that there aren't actual boundaries are driven by ideology not science."

There is, Europe and Asia are geological concepts and the border between them is not arbitrary concept.

Davidski said...

There's no R1a in Afanasievo or Yamnaya, and there won't be, except maybe in some unusual samples.

R1a is from a a different cultural group originally located west of Yamnaya.

music lover said...

@All
We should stick to genetics because these arguments are getting ridiculous. I think there are two obvious things that have come up based purely on facts. (A) That we have sampling bias on the Bronze Age Steppe explaining the reason why we don't see certain haplogroups. (B) That the earliest evidence of Z2103 is in Samara (C) That this alone explains Tocharian and provides integration south of the caucuses on the border of what is present day Iran and Anatolia (D) that Z103 moves down the balkans.

All of which establish that the Yamnaya from Samara are responsible for the spread of IE.

M.H. _82 said...

@ ML

“. I am saying both do but that it is a completely arbitrary definition and those who push for any other agenda other than the fact that there aren't actual boundaries are driven by ideology not science.”

Natural mountain ranges and thousands of years of genetic similarities is Ideological ? Yes partly; but it’s certainly real. It’s denying science to deny that

music lover said...

@Davidski
The Dneiper was the genetic boundary between EEHG and Anatolia_N type ancestries and provides a wonderful natural boundary in the ancient world. However unlike EEHG and Anatolia_N type ancestry, the EEHG WSHG ancestry to Devils Gate, Baikal HG are not boundaries but a cline reflecting different levels of admixture. The globular amphora from Eastern Ukraine in contrast have no admixture from EEHG type ancestries, confirming this boundary.

music lover said...

@Mammoth_Hunter
Likewise, natural giant river systems that clearly separate herders and agriculturalists, both in terms of culture and genetics in the ancient world are the correct natural boundary to use. The Urals are a conduit for admixture not a barrier. Anyone who argues otherwise doesn't understand the ancient DNA data.

Davidski said...

@music lover

All of which establish that the Yamnaya from Samara are responsible for the spread of IE.

There's no unambiguous link between Yamnaya and IE.

The main link is the Corded Ware culture, but if a direct relationship between Yamnaya and Corded Ware can't be established, then Yamnaya can't be IE.

music lover said...

@Davidski
The CW are only a source for Balto-Slavic. The important link here is with ancestry movement into the Altai, clearly related to the Yamnaya. as well as movement south of the caucuses mountains on the boundaries of Anatolia and Iran. The Poltavka outlier, also from the same geographic area as the Yamnaya provides the link with Sintashta and South Asia.

Anonymous said...

*music lover "(C) That this alone explains Tocharian and provides integration south of the caucuses on the border of what is present day Iran and Anatolia (D) that Z103 moves down the balkans. All of which establish that the Yamnaya from Samara are responsible for the spread of IE."

You absolutely always make mistakes and say the political nonsense which has no relation to science. Z2103 is irrelevant to the spread of the IE, the Yamnaya culture has nothing to do with the spread of IE, moreover, there is not any evidence that Tocharians have something to Afanasyevo, there is no evidence that Anatolia is somehow connected with Yamnaya.

Explanation Tocharians can be given through the Tarim mummies which have nothing to do with Z2103 and the Yamnaya culture, but it is connected cultures of Europe and R1a.

music lover said...

@Davidski
Together with the evidence for clear sampling bias in the Bronze Age steppe coupled with the fact that the Yamnaya are the only movement capable of spreading ancestry in a manner that mirrors the IE linguistic tree to regions on the boundaries of Anatolia and the Tarim Basin, makes it the ONLY possible candidate currently supported by ancient DNA. Care to make any other suggestions? Or are you going to have to grasp at any data that your "sources" tell you will be published. You can wait forever, because they don't exist.

music lover said...

@Archi
Explaining Tocharian with R1a migrations into the Tarim Basin completely breaks the IE linguistic tree. It suggests that Tocharian is a clade with Indo-Iranian (which it is most certainly not).

Ric Hern said...

Did Afanasevo spread with the Wheel ? Did Yamnaya spread with the Wheel ? Which Cultures in the Steppe had Wheel Tech ?

Ric Hern said...

If the source of Yamnaya and Corded Ware had Wheels and Horses then certainly Yamnaya could not totally be excluded from being Indo-European related...

M.H. _82 said...

Explaining Tocharian with R1a migrations into the Tarim Basin completely breaks the IE linguistic tree. It suggests that Tocharian is a clade with Indo-Iranian (which it is most certainly not).”

No it doesn’t that’s ridiculous.
The relationship between languages and haplogroups is complex.
And for some reason you seem to think Afansievo and tocharians are synonymous. Also ridiculous.

Davidski said...

@music lover

The CW are only a source for Balto-Slavic.

I see, and according to you this doesn't completely break the IE linguistic tree?

So I'm guessing that in your opinion Balto-Slavic is the most highly divergent node in the IE phylogeny, since all other IE branches come from Yamnaya Samara.

Anonymous said...

@music lover

"The CW are only a source for Balto-Slavic."
NO.

"The important link here is with the ancestry movement into the Altai, clearly related to the Yamnaya. as well as movement south of the caucuses mountains on the boundaries of Anatolia and Iran. The Poltavka outlier, also from the same geographic area as the Yamnaya provides the link with Sintashta and South Asia."
NO.

You don't know archeology, the Poltavka culture is not self-culture, it's such a mixed pseudo-culture consisting of Yamnaya component under the strong influence of the Catacomb component on which makes the invasion from the post-Corded Volsko-Lbische culture, a huge number of graves in the Poltavka culture belong to the Volsko-Lbischians, the Volsko-Lbische pottery are everywhere in the Poltavka culture.
In the end, all Poltavkians were killed by violence, they had killed struck his head battle axes.

JuanRivera said...

I think there was elevated ANE ancestry in HGs of the North Caspian and the Urals. Baikal ancestry didn't cross into Europe until the Eneolithic (Steppe Maykop), but it doesn't show up outside of Steppe Maykop until the MLBA and not in main steppe groups until the IA. EEF ancestry didn't spread into steppe main groups until the Eneolithic, before that, the Dnieper was a boundary between Ukraine_HG and EHG, still being partly that in the Eneolithic. As for which language Yamnaya spoke, it may have been either some para-IE or an unknown IE language. Catacomb may have spoken an ancestor of Armenian (given that Armenia[_Lchasen]_MBA shows above 20% of Catacomb, and Armenia_LBA is overwhelmingly Armenia[_Lchasen]_MBA). Anatolian is unknown as for now.

JuanRivera said...

Afanasievo may have spoken a para-IE language heavily influenced by pre-proto-Turkic, pre-proto-Yeniseian and the unknown West Siberian language.

Ric Hern said...

The later expansion of Haplogroup G and J and Turkic into the Caucasus Piedmont Steppe certainly affected the Languages of the Caucasus. So although Yamnaya survivors could have settled in the Caucasus I don't think these survivors retained the Language of their Yamnaya Ancestors...too much Non-Indo-European going on there after Yamnaya...

Anonymous said...

@@music lover

"Explaining with Tocharian R1a migrations into the Tarim Basin completely breaks the IE linguistic tree. It suggests that Tocharian is a clade with Indo-Iranian"

No tree it does not break, it is only in your fantasies. Tarim mummies are not Indo-Iranians, they have R1a Z93-(!) and there is nothing to connect them with the Indo-Iranians in archaeology.

Ric Hern said...

Unless Davidski knows of some samples which Clearly Link Yamnaya to Maykop ?

Ric Hern said...

Or Steppe Maykop clearly linked to Yamnaya ?

TLT said...

R1a Z-93 came from Sredny Stog, right? I know that there is some stuff that is yet to be published (based on David Anthony's recent comments). Does this allow Sredny Stog to be an important ancestor to CWC and/or Sintashta + Andronovo?

JuanRivera said...

"Yamnaya" (different from Yamnaya in being dominated by R1a and being ancestral to Corded Ware) certainly spoke IE. "Yamnaya" may have been located in northern Ukraine and southern Poland.

Anonymous said...

@TLT "R1a Z-93 Sredny Stog came from, right?"

This is a clear mistake, it is not Sredny Stog even archaeologically and by time, and with the dating there is great doubt.

JuanRivera said...

Some steppe ancestry shows up in the MLBA of the Levant. Also, Steppe Maykop may be included in the steppe label, and it certainly shows up in Anatolia (although its presence in EBA Anatolia weakens its association to Anatolian).

M.H. _82 said...

@ Music Lover

''The Urals are a conduit for admixture not a barrier. Anyone who argues otherwise doesn't understand the ancient DNA data.''


The Urals ceased being a conduit during the Late Paeleolithic (ANE). The populations east & west of the Ural diverged during the Holocene. The Samara region represents the eastern frontier of a NW Eurasian cline; pre-existing in the Holocene. The emergence of Kurgan cultures began in East central Europe over 1500 years of evolution. Yamnaya represents an eastern expansion to Samara. This was then supplanted by a new wave from even further west. This should be old news by now

music lover said...

@Davidski
It actually perfectly supports the IE tree. CW and Sintashta are sister groups based on derived Y chromosomes and similar autosomal ancestry. The earliest sample with the characteristic mix of autosomal ancestry and Y chromosome is in Samara. The Yamnaya are the ONLY group capable of explaining the early branching of Tocharian and now with the radio carbon date from Hajji Firuz show clear evidence of moving south of the caucuses in the Late Bronze Age completed a chain of transmission from some of the earlier samples from on the southern Pontic steppe but north of the caucuses Post Yamnaya. Like I said before, care to throw out any other suggestions based on the CURRENTLY available data. Or do you need to fabricate unpublished data that will never exist to support your claim.

music lover said...

@Mammoth_Hunter
You clearly don't understand the ancient DNA data. There was clear movement of Steppe MLBA ancestry past the Urals into the Altai, well past the Bronze Age and of East Eurasian ancestry well past the Urals deep into the heart of Eastern Europe after the Iron Age by the Scythians, Sarmatians and Huns.

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